


Nocturnal

by ottermo



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, references to canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An explanation is owed, but given recent events Morse can hardly string the words together. Some post-episode fluff for Nocturne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nocturnal

**Author's Note:**

> I did not ask for this obsession. I blame Shaun Evans' face. This is not proofread, so here is the advanced apology for my sleep-deprived state.

The first five hours or so are a deep cavern, the type of sleep only acute exhaustion can hurl you into. No dreams can touch him here, so far below consciousness he might as well be buried. It's only later, when he floats up from sullen earth into the thinner layers of slumber that they come, his body no longer tired enough to block out the images. Blood seeping into a wooden floor, a little girl's face. White cotton aprons doused with red. 

He wakes three times, maybe four. A child's scream rockets him out of the nightmare and into the darkness of his room, where he lies for a while, not shaking but decidedly shaken, until sleep takes him again. 

The fourth time Detective Constable Endeavour Morse does what Detective Constable Endeavour Morse never does: he gives in. Gets up. He holds his alarm clock up to the moonlit window: two a.m.

Maud's face is waiting for him behind every closed eyelid and suddenly the only thing that matters is that he be outside, where there's air, anywhere that isn't here so he can just breathe.

The soft click of his own door - once, twice. The corridor is silent. He leans against the wall for a long moment, staring into the shadowed wallpaper. Faint thoughts of Monica tease at the edges of his mind, and they carry a bitter regret that he knows would taste stronger if he were properly awake. Idiot. 

Maybe he doesn't need to go outside; maybe here is enough. Out here he can't hear his own clock ticking, can't convince himself it's the sound of someone winding up a music box. The silence here is heavenly.

And so when the door of the building starts to open, the sound is amplified so greatly in his tired mind that it's like a canon firing, sending bolts of panic straight to his brain and a flinch through his entire body that almost makes him stumble. Surely his heartbeat can be heard in the next street. Every fibre in him is tensed, but not with the steady alertness of a police officer. Rather with the icy terror of a man who is fast running out of wits to be frightened out of. 

Sleep-deprived, he'll tell himself later, otherwise he'd have been fine. Because the horrifying figure separates itself from the doorway and it's not a horrifying figure after all, it's a young woman in a nurse's uniform and overcoat, sporting a handbag and a worried expression he can just make out in the half light from the open door. 

"Morse." she states, as if to remind him. 

He can only nod at her, not fully trusting himself with words and not knowing which would be appropriate to this situation. Not that he's an expert, but he'd be willing to bet it's not something that comes up often, meeting the girl you - for all intents and purposes - stood up for your boss's daughter in the middle of the night when you're out of sorts from residual murder-inquiry jitters. 

"Night shift," she says, by way of explanation. And then, though it doesn't seem like she's keen to ask, "Are you all right?"

He feels his head go up and down, as if nodding is the correct answer. It's the only answer he feels he's entitled to give, because words for how he really feels a) don't exist and b) would only be answered with sympathy he doesn't deserve from anyone - least of all the sweet, gentle Monica he's treated so poorly. 

She narrows her eyes. "You can't even lie in body language, can you? Come in." 

She pushes open the door to her flat, but he can't bring himself to move at first. Such intrusion, even on her request, is so far removed from the grovelling apologies he should be offering her that it roots him to the ground.

Monica doesn't move. The door remains open. "Morse, I'm not tired enough that I'll fall asleep waiting. Come in."

The edge to her tone is just steely enough to convince him it's all right: she hasn't forgiven him, so he can still try to mend something, somehow, out of the mess that's been the last few days. 

She points to a chair, he sits. She doesn't, just regards him for a moment. Analysing. 

Language returns to him, his head now on the same plane of consciousness as the rest of his body. "I owe you an explanation." 

She shakes her head, "No. But an apology wouldn't go amiss." 

He stares at his hands, clasped to stop the twitch in his right thumb that's the last sign of his fright seeping away. "I am sorry. I'd already agreed to it before I asked you, but I...I shouldn't have said it was work."

She turns her head. "Like I said. I don't need an explanation." A pause. "Pretty girl." 

He looks up at her now, knowing he's safe from eye contact. "She's my boss's daughter. Even if I'd wanted to go on a double date with Strange - which I didn't - that was never giving to happen. With Joan, I mean."

She waits for him to finish speaking before she turns back towards him, and makes for the chair next to his. "Again. You don't need to explain. Look, I'm flattered by the inference, Morse, but that little episode was days ago and it's clearly not what's keeping you up at night, so just tell me. What's the matter?"

Her gentle tone, the way she ignores his excuses, her hand on his arm, it's almost too much, and the tenderness threatens to break the barrier in his throat. "It's nothing," he says, and his voice sounds strangled; even as he dismisses her he's crying out silently for her to push him, to make him say the words.

"Whatever it is, it isn't nothing," she says, and he despises himself for the comfort he gets from the sound of her voice, because he let her see him in a pub with another woman and because he's a policeman and he should be better than this, he should be above night terrors when a little girl's parents are mourning tonight and he never even met her alive and because he's tired, so tired of being who he is every second of every day. 

"A little girl," he manages, and even the words sound little in the air. DeBryn's phrasing circles back to him, "with adults you can take the rough with the smooth..." 

The hand on his arm moves up to his shoulder, then snakes behind his neck and she's kneeling beside him, steadying him even though he's not moving. It's the embrace of a sister rather than a lover, but he thinks this, if it's all she can ever be, is enough, and far more than is deserved. 

He has no tears for the poor little lost child; this is a disgust that runs deeper than sadness, and a few sobs will not make up for the thousands of breaths that will go untaken. He is static: it's not numbness, it's pain, but not one he can channel into a resolution. Black is dead. Justice has been served. Maud will be buried on Friday and there's nothing anyone will ever be able to do.

His lie to Monica will seem surmountable to the clear mind of the morning. This will not. It never will.

"Usually solving it's enough," his voice is a whisper that only carries so far before it shrivels away. "This time...."

The end of that sentence is signposted to places he doesn't want to go, even now. He closes his eyes. Backtracking sluggishly, he forces his mind toward the nearest thought that doesn't burn. 

"I was going to buy you flowers," he chokes out. 

He can feel her smile, even though she's resting her head on his. "Well, don't spoil the surprise. Orchids are my favourite." 

He smiles back into the darkness, and suddenly the day which will come after it has a purpose, however small. It won't be all right for a long time. But it won't be all wrong forever.


End file.
